A Parallax Design Manifesto from Frank Chimero

A Parallax Design Manifesto from Frank Chimero

Designer Frank Chimero's personal website opens up with a thoughtful and lovely vertical parallax tour of his design thoughts, forming a sort of mission / manifesto. He makes his entrance less about what he does for design, and instead focusses on the capabilities and necessity of design—showing, not telling and quite compelling.

The text version, like design poetry:

Make—Break
Collect—Connect

Everything was made.

Each invention shows that the world is malleable, from the simplest stone tool to the screen you're using to read this. We make what we want, break things in the process, collect what we like, and connect what we discover to get us closer to where we want to be.

Design imposes a shape on to the world. We mold things to take us somewhere better.

The Chase is On
Better Ideas
Better Work
Better Lives

We can make this for ourselves, but we get the chance to do so for others.

The things we make for one another braid us together.

This is a photo of a woman at the Foxconn plant in Shenzhen, China. Her friend took the photo on the iPhone they were assembling. The picture was later discovered by a man in the UK who bought the phone.
The photo reveals the maker, allowing her to say, "Here I Am."
We’re quick to forget that human hands touch everything. The bonds that join us are revealed by the fingerprints we leave on what we make.

Those fingerprints highlight our codependency. We need one another to make things, and it means we get the opportunity to remake it all, too.

Things can be better, so there us work to do.
The world is not yet done.

Jessica Patterson

Hi, I'm Jessica. I'm a Designer and Writer at Drawbackwards and write for the Design Blog at Design.org. I enjoy vintage things, letterpress, publication design, and long walks around the Cesar Chavez Park pond. You can follow me on twitter at @jessdoodled for lots of fun randomness.